A Brighton teacher  tried to hang herself three times in a day at a psychiatric hospital which had been criticised for patient safety three months earlier.

Jessica Philpott died three days after throttling herself in the gardens of Mill View Hospital in Hove.

Yesterday the jury at her inquest was told the hospital had decided to discharge her despite “grave concerns” about the risk she posed to herself.

Miss Philpott, a former RE teacher at Oakmeeds Community College in Burgess Hill, suffered from emotionally unstable personality disorder, also called borderline personality disorder.

Between September last year and her death in February she went to hospital six times, after cutting herself, taking overdoses of prescription drugs or strangling herself.

On February 13 she was found in the hospital gardens with the cable around her neck. Earlier staff had stopped two attempts she made to barricade herself in rooms and strangle herself.

The inquest is being held to determine how Miss Philpott died and whether Mill View “by its act or omission” caused or contributed to her death.

Miss Philpott had been admitted to Mill View on February 1 after strangling herself at Royal Sussex County Hospital.

The inquest at Brighton was told she was observed every 15 minutes. But because of a policy of only keeping people with her condition in hospital for 72 hours at a time, she was aware she would be likely to go home.

She was granted an extra week, but on February 13 she was told she was to be discharged.

Mill View nurse Anthony Jones, who treated Miss Philpott, said he had “grave concerns” about her safety. Community mental health nurse Jude Godden said she had contacted the hospital to warn them that she “may be considering suicide attempts”.

A fellow patient, Jolie Kipps, said Miss Philpott had become upset after the meeting where she was told she was discharged.

She said: “I could hear the conversation she was having with the staff. I could hear her saying she wanted to hang herself.”

Miss Philpott’s friend Natalie Fforde said she was concerned about the hospital’s three-day admission policy for patients with the condition. She said Miss Philpott had told her she was suicidal when she visited her the day before she hanged herself.

The inquest continues.